Gerry Rafferty Quotes

I don't spend much time listening to the records when they're done. Usually I let go of it. Especially in the Eighties and Nineties - they were like product, almost.

I'm not interested in forcing my music on people, and that's what the whole music industry nowadays is based on is forcing stations to play it, forcing people to listen to it.

In a sense, the music business and I haven't always been the best of bedfellows. Artists often have to fight their corner. Your music goes through these filters of record labels and media, and you're hoping you'll find someone who'll help you get your work into the world.

I know there are some labels that put out music for art's sake, but I don't know which ones.

You make music to change the radio, not make music for the radio.

You make your music, then you try to find whatever audience is out there for it.

I think the record industry has gotten to be more about labels wondering what the new single is rather than labels nurturing artists. It's gotten away from making a full album of music that someone would want to listen to all the way through.

The making of music is profoundly affected by the market.

A lot of very popular mainstream artists are products of record companies and marketing companies, and any time anyone can stand outside of that, that's interesting.

I should be the one to say what I do. It's just not done that way anymore in Nashville, and I can't do it the other way. That's how our record label came about.

I think some people record songs and make records a certain way to cater to radio. If you're born to make commercial music that's cool. But if you're born to not make commercial records, maybe you're meant to cater to another market.

The music industry is a matrix that is counter to what is natural and right.

It's great to be able to find a way to release your music and do what you want to do artistically and not have to just worry about being accepted by the major label industry.

I guess if I'd have more of a producer attitude, maybe I'd sell more records. But I'm basically a songwriter.

As for the music business itself, the key things have not changed that much. It operates like any business and money still keeps things moving.

I never, ever had it in my mind that I wanted to be in the record industry, because I still contend that the record industry is an insidious affair. It's this terrible collision between art and commerce, and it will always be that way.

I don't believe in the philosophy of stumbling across hit records.

Recorded music is more a marketing tool than a revenue source.

I feel like once the song is done, you put it out there and if people want to do bizarre remixes, if people want to make strange videos, great. You know, like chaos theory applied to the music business.

I enjoy touring. I enjoy recording the music, I enjoy dreaming it and I enjoy performing it. I also definitely enjoy selling it, because I like to eat.

I certainly don't want to be a record label guy.

We've managed to have a long career that is still quite vibrant, yet we've never had to kow-tow to record companies who said we weren't commercial enough.

The bricks and mortar of the music business, they don't exist any longer.

We try and stay out of the corporate side of it. The band has never compromised. At some point in our career we could have made a certain type of record and sold millions of units, as they are called.

I think that's the problem in a lot of music. We've got these record labels.